Brent "Duck" Duckett coaches (and motivates) Baibhav Singh through a PR squat workset of 270x5 at Starting Strength Atlanta. [photo courtesy of Adam Martin]

The powers of Starting Strength Gyms and Starting Strength Affiliate Gyms combine! Jim (pictured) and his fiance, Stacie, both train at Starting Strength Denver. Preparing for their upcoming wedding, they both were in Omaha this past week and trained at Testify Strength & Conditioning while in town. It is always great to see these two, and Jim was even kind enough to help load weights for the Barbell MAYhem on Saturday. [photo courtesy of Phil Meggers]

Nick’s setting a new Squat PR of 200lbs for 5 reps at Starting Strength Boston. [photo courtesy of Stephen Babbitt]

Darren Stevens learns to hip drive during the teaching progression at the squat camp hosted at Starting Strength Columbus. Hip drive is one of the most important aspects the squat. [photo courtesy of Pete Yeh]

Darin Miller takes a work-set to the bottom under the eye of SSC Jarret Beck. Darin was one of six attendees at the squat camp hosted at Starting Strength Columbus. [photo courtesy of Patrick Crawford]

Scott Cullen locks out a PR of 315 without much discernible "deadlift face" at Starting Strength Atlanta. [photo courtesy of Brent Duckett]

Starting Strength Cincinnati member Merce is a huge Cincinnati Reds fan. The word got back to Reds outfielder Will Benson (one of her favorite players) who sent her an autographed shirt with a beautiful message. [photo courtesy of Luke Schroeder]

Meet Report

The annual Testify Barbell MAYhem weightlifting meet took place this Saturday (05/11/24) at Testify Strength & Conditioning in Omaha, NE, and you can view a recording of the meet here. For the women, the Best Lifter Award (Morgard the Manatee) went to Chassity Del Balso, and for the men, the Best Lifter Award went to Bryan Jow. The Best Lifter Awards were determined using Sinclair points. View full meet results

Dave snatches 44 kg and cleans-and-jerks 57 kg for his third attempts at the Testify Strength & ConditioningTestify Barbell MAYhem weightlifting meet. Dave went 6-for-6 on the day and set PRs in the snatch, clean-and-jerk, and total. [photo courtesy of Phil Meggers]

Meanwhile, lifters gathered in Wichita Falls to contest the squat, press, and deadlift:

10-year-old Eli Lindsey sets up for a squat during the Strengthlifting Spring Classic this past weekend. [photo courtesy of Nick Delgadillo]

Dan Gallagher deadlifts 284kg for his last attempt at the Strengthlifting Spring Classic held at WFAC. [photo courtesy of Nick Delgadillo]

apwolochuk

I've searched the forum and read a lot of discussion regarding this topic, but nothing that pinpointed what I'm experiencing (apologies if I missed it).

After starting the NLP a couple of months ago, I started experiencing bad pain in my left arm just above the elbow. It was triggered as my squats got heavier and really inhibited my bench press afterwards (a lot of pain), but I pushed through it. I watched your video regarding how to take the correct grip on a squat and the pain went away; thank you so much for that!

Now......I squat and pull fine, however, my bench press and overheads trigger some pain after my workouts. Similar to before, it radiates from my arm just above the elbow and goes to the shoulder (deltoid) and sometimes continues to my back. On a scale of 1-10 it's like a 3, but you know it when it happens and it usually calms down after 24-48 hours. Another symptom is numbness in the arm. For example, if I'm holding a cup of coffee, my arm gets a little weak, not enough to drop the cup, but enough to make me recruit another arm muscle to stabilize it. It only lasts a second or two. I experience this maybe 2-3 times a day. My orthopedic said it was probably tendonitis (he seemed to rule out rotator cuff issues with a bunch of movement tests) and not to do any overhead exercises for a while. So I took a couple of weeks off from overheads, which helped, but the benching seemed to trigger it anyway. I went back to the ortho and he said I could get a shot or do an MRI. I guess I can do the MRI. But in lieu of that, do you think this is something that I can just work through? Or is the sporadic numbness concerning? I'll probably go through with the MRI, but wanted to see if you had experienced this in the past and what you did to overcome.Thank you very much for your time.

I look forward to your podcasts. You and the guys do a great job.

Mark Rippetoe

You have a cervical disc injury, maybe at C5-6 or C6-7. Get an MRI.

JuanmaJones

I’m not in the world of elite competition and there's something that I find strange: Why is the world record for the squat heavier than the one for the deadlift? Even the record without knee wraps is heavier than Thor's or Eddie Hall's deadlift.

Mark Rippetoe

Powerlifters don't train or perform the deadlift very effectively.

JFord

Is that because they tend to write it off as being too taxing on the CNS and therefore deleterious to their squat and bench press (or overhead press)? I can't think of any other reason because they can still pick up points from it.

Mark Gleichauf

When you say “perform” the deadlift effectively, I understand this as they are not able to get into an optimal position. Specifically, their belly hits their thighs and they cannot achieve the proper lumbar extension while maintaining high hips and the shoulders positioned slightly in front of the bar. They, in this example, are the lifters with the highest squat numbers. Is that accurate?

Mark Rippetoe

As I have observed several times, advanced lifters' squats usually get close to their deadlifts even if the deadlift is trained correctly. And not all powerlifters are fat, contrary to what you have been told. But when your deadlift coaching consists of "JUST PICK IT UP OFF THE FUCKING FLOOR!!! GRIP IT AND RIP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!", then you will not optimize your deadlift training.